Alas, the 1,000-point restaurant I'd picked for our meeting a week ago had suffered a power failure that morning. So instead, Yelp's Vince Sollitto (vice president of communications) and Luther Lowe (business outreach manager) used the Yelp application on their phones to investigate alternate options nearby. On the other side of Connecticut Avenue, I peeked in windows to see which restaurants had seating available and interesting menus. It being Bastille Day, we agreed on Bistrot du Coin.

Sollitto and Lowe said the San Francisco-based company would rather err on the side of stringency. They didn't give the "that's not a bug, that's a feature" defense, but they didn't promise dramatic improvements to the screening process either. So if your fair-minded review gets whisked out of view by Yelp's undisclosed algorithms, all I can suggest is that you revise it and see if a 1.1 version fares better.

One in four Yelp searches now comes from a mobile device, so I asked about its choice of smart phone platforms. Sollitto said its iPhone app had been a terrific success, but the company didn't enjoy having to wait for Apple to approve each update to it. With Yelp's Android application -- nearing one million downloads -- the company can ship new releases as fast as it can write them.

Yelp's developers would give a poor review to BlackBerry development, considering the difficulty of adapting its software to all the different BlackBerry devices. On the other hand, writing a webOS app for Palm's Pre and Pixi was a cinch -- but the company isn't happy with the poor reward that effort has yielded. That's one reason Yelp doesn't plan to rush out an app for Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.

Finally, I passed on a reader's query: Will Yelp offer any cooperative-buying options like those provided by Chicago-based Groupon or D.C.-based LivingSocial? (Disclaimer: The latter site is run by Tim O'Shaughnessy, son-in-law of Post Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Donald E. Graham). Lowe said that wasn't in the plan, but the company would expand its system of "Hot on Yelp" promotions to include coupons redeemable for later on; its blog today notes one such deal for Houston salon- and spa-goers.

One other note about our lunch: It being Bastille Day in a French restaurant, the restaurant was crowded and the service suffered. As the wait for our entrees dragged on, I had to laugh at the thought of these delays happening to employees of a site that publicizes diners' critiques of restaurants.

But neither Sollitto nor Lowe conspicuously fired up the Yelp app in view of the staff, told our waiter "do you know who you're dealing with?!" or demanded to see the manager. Neither even posted a write-up of the place. (Lowe told me later that he doesn't write reviews, period.)

What else would you have liked me to ask these two? What should I quiz them about next time?

I will never use Yelp again. They harrassed my boyfriend (restaurant owner) when he turned down their mafia-like demands that he pay to advertise on the site. Just like you read in the negative press about Yelp, his positive ratings disappeared and all of a sudden he started getting negative reviews - they suddenly started showing up the day after he turned them down. It's obvious they were writing them and had never even been to the restaurant - someone complained about a nasty female bartender, which is odd because the bartenders are all male. His restaurant is very popular here in NY and Yelp is the only place where it has negative reviews.

I will never use Yelp again. They harrassed my boyfriend (restaurant owner) when he turned down their mafia-like demands that he pay to advertise on the site. Just like you read in the negative press about Yelp, his positive ratings disappeared and all of a sudden he started getting negative reviews - they suddenly started showing up the day after he turned them down. It's obvious they were writing them and had never even been to the restaurant - someone complained about a nasty female bartender, which is odd because the bartenders are all male. His restaurant is very popular here in NY and Yelp is the only place where it has negative reviews.

As I've asked you before, ask them what is the best way to get in touch with senior executives at a firm? I have been trying to get a business proposal to Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook and Ning, with zero success.